Justice Department adopts new rules after AP scandal blowback

The White House has been presented with a policy change that will provide broad new protections for journalists and their sources in the wake of two Department of Justice investigations that drew criticism over the targeting of reporters.

The White House has been presented with a policy change that will
provide broad new protections for journalists and their sources
in the wake of two Department of Justice investigations that drew
criticism over the targeting of reporters.

Attorney General Eric Holder presented the new rules to the White
House on Friday afternoon, and a Justice Department official
speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters that they will go
into effect “almost immediately.”

Earlier in the day, White House spokesperson Jay Carney said the
president had seen the revised policies and accepted them but
refrained from commenting until the full report could be made
public.

“When it is released, we'll have something to say about
it,” Carney said.

According to early reports, the new changes will mandate that
journalists carrying out “ordinary news-gathering
activities” cannot be served with a warrant involving their
own investigative work unless the reporter himself is the subject
of a criminal investigation.

Additionally, the Justice Department will be required to notify a
news agency or journalist as soon as a subpoena is sought unless
doing so would "pose a clear and substantial threat to the
integrity of the investigation." Up until now, the
second-ranking Justice Department must formally declare that
there would be no harm done in notifying the target of a probe in
order for the journalist to even find out.

The new rules also require that, regardless, a journalist under
investigation must be informed within 45 days unless the attorney
general specifically says it would hinder a federal probe.

The decision to implement a policy change comes weeks after it
was revealed that the Justice Department under Mr. Holder sought
phone records from several Associated Press employees and
separately targeted a Fox News national security reporter as part
of an investigation into leaked documents.

After it was revealed that the phone histories of roughly 100 AP
journalists were compromised, AP President Gary Pruitt called the
government’s actions “unconstitutional.”

“We don’t question their right to conduct these sorts of
investigations, we just think they went about it the wrong
way,” Pruitt told CBS News in May. “So sweeping, so
secretively, so abusively and harassingly and overbroad that it
is an unconstitutional act.”

Pruitt said that when the AP found out that “thousands upon
thousands” of work-related call logs were handed to the
Department of Justice, the government said informing the news
agency would have posed a substantial threat to their
investigation into a leaked Central Intelligence Agency report.
“But they have not explained why it would, and we can’t
understand why it would,” said Pruitt.

The AP believed that they were targeted due to a story they did
detailing how the CIA foiled an attempted terrorist attack in
2012. Pruitt said the AP heard from high officials in two parts
of the government that national security issues wouldn’t be at
risk if his agency published their report, at which point they
did.

Shortly after the AP became aware of that investigation earlier
this year, it was revealed that Fox News journalist James Rosen
was targeted in a separate probe that sought to uncover
information about a State Department employee believed to have
leaked sensitive info.

"Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs.
Our focus must be on those who break the law," Obama said
during a May 23 address.

During that speech, the president ordered Attorney General Holder
to provide him with possible changes to the current guidelines by
July 12 — which he did this Friday with only hours to spare.